Because Pictures Could Burn
by BabyDollHeart
Summary: It hurts because she couldn't save them and she would do anything to do just that...save them, she cries because she wants to be saved to.


Authors note: hey, so this is just like kinda random, felt like writing it got distracted, started writing again, so here it is if anyone will ever read this...if you are, thank you! id really really love feed back just cause i want to be a writer when i grow up and i want to get better so just write whatever, yeah...i talk a lot, anyway, I'm gonna take the risk and be like every other fan fiction writer and ask for reviews...please...ok I'm done, enjoy...its kinda sad if i do say so myself..whatever, enjoy!

* * *

_"Oh yeah, and what do you believe?" _

_"I believe love is uncontrollable"_

_-Emma_

* * *

Jeremy Gilbert died. Died, murdered, killed. anyway you said it the result was the same he was dead. gone in physical existence. not in emotional existence, far from it, his memory haunted those who knew him, loved him. memories pledged the minds of some like a sweet disease. some were to cry for and some to laugh, it was scary, terrifying some seconds the overwhelming all consuming realization that no more memories could be made with him, an action everyone takes for granted until they have truly utterly, permanently lost someone. but Elena knew this fact all too well she had never told anyone, it wasn't something you could explain, sometimes you came across someone who lost the same as you and you can see that they know how memories are more precious than life itself. But at the end of the day, thats all there are, their memories.

But sometimes the memories weren't enough. Sometimes the photographs were,(At least for alittle while.) And Elena relished in that little while, drunk in the moments when she held the picture close up to her pretty doe eyes, close enough so she could pretend that Jeremy was there, that her parents, uncle John and aunt Jenna had their arms weaved into each others, and their faces were illuminated by the dim lights of christmas, and for just a couple moments Elena Gilbert could pretend she was normal. Happy with her family in the living room at christmas, while cookies burned in the kitchen leaving a awful-beautiful aroma lingering through the heavy air filled with heavy christmas smells and smiles. somedays she could pretend she could still smell it still.  
But if you looked too long the image became gritty. The shadows on the walls in the picture look dangerous and scary, you couldn't smell the burnt cookies in the air anymore, smiles became artificial as if they they were smiling at someone behind you, as if they knew they were behind you now too.  
So she didn't look at the pictures to long.

She placed them back in the floral pink box where the photo was placed sideways, so it was an ½ an centimeter wide, Elena hated it. It made them look small, when in reality it was big, huge, colasell. all consuming. But she knew things were never what they seem.  
Sometimes it was comforting that pictures didn't change, comforting that something could stay solid, be there when everything was gone, disappeared.  
Sometimes Elena found comfort in the fact that at midnight, when she woke up, and tried to think of her dad holding her until she fell asleep, comforting his daughter like daddys did. She tried so hard but she couldn't remember what color his eyes were, thats when her feet ran themselves to her parents room busting the door open (Sometimes she closed her eyes when she opened the door, pretending they would be there cuddling in bed like always and she'd run to them and never let them leave her, but she stopped closing her eyes. it became too painful to open her eyes again, too hard to look at disappointment when it was staring at you) So Elena kept her eyes open when she collapsed to the floor, roughly pulling boxes of pictures off the bookshelf vigorously, yanking pictures out and spreading them out like never ending ocean across her parents room and digging her fingernails into her palms until blood dripped down her arms, she memorized every detail of her familys figures until the blood on her arms became sticky and her tears evaporated from the hardwood floor, then she placed every photo, every box where it came from. Where it was supposed to be. She washed the blood off her arms, the only traces of weakness left were the scars on her palms from when she punished herself for forgetting what she promised she'd never forget.

Damon was there some nights, he would stay with her and she'd be strong for him, maybe not for him, but because of him. Because if she let herself let go, if she let out all the pain and heartache that she wouldn't be strong anymore, she wouldn't know what she was anymore. So her face portrayed barely any emotion everyday, she smiled when something was supposed to be funny, she frowned when someone brought up the passed, she laughed when necessarily, but if you knew Elena you knew it wasn't real. She hadn't cried over jeremy's death yet. Not a tear, not a whimper. not a sound, thats how it had to be, if she let even the tiniest drop of water leak from her eye... shed crumble fall until she didnt believe there was even a ground to fall on.

She knew that Damon worried about her, all the time minutes ticked by when he would stare at her emotionless face. he knew that the smiles, frowns, laughs weren't real, he seemed to be the only one who really knew her. Sometimes she hated it, sometimes she loved it.

Sometimes he would take her in his arms when she was going to break as if he knew what she wanted, needed more than anything the strong hold of his arms made her eyes burn from the effort to keep back tears, to keep up her mask, chearde, Damon always had a way of exposing her.  
Damons chin rested on the top of her head, as Elena took shaky breaths before slouching into his stronghold, trying to remember every detail of the moment, (She knew how precious moments where) He would scoop her up in his arms carrying her, to her bed where he pulled her to his chest holding her body with his, keeping her there with him in bed. (She needed that, sometimes she didn't know where she was...not in the physical sense) Those were the only nights she had pure dreams.

Sometimes he would call her a different name a term of endearment that made her heart flutter and her mind to immediately soothe. he would just slip them casually into his sentences as if he knew how much she adored it. different names for different times, Lena, baby girl, babe, sweetie, sweetheart and darling made her feel like a teenage girl again.

Sometimes he would make her forget, maybe just for a while but it was time, time passed and she smiled at him, she laughed, she forgot for a little and she loved him for this. The words were never spoken but she knew, he knew. He knew her better than anyone.  
He danced with her sometimes scooped her up of the couch spinning her around in his arms, her feet never touching the floor as he held her against him as he danced around the room humming loudly in her ear, The low rumble sending shivers down her spine, she smiled every time...she felt...happy, it felt good.  
Sometimes he would cook for her make homemade meals that made her taste buds jump in joy (made her heart jump too) They ate i silence and sometimes they talked about what's going on now, sometimes about the lifetimes damon lived. They didn't talk about the past, never the passed.  
Sometimes he holds her hand, places a hand on her knee, puts an arm around her shoulder. Sometimes it comforts her, assures her that he was there. That he`s not going anywhere.

Sometimes the touch says, 'I promise' And sometimes thats everything she needs. A promises that he won't leave her like everyone else. A promise he isn't fragile. other times the touch says 'i love you' and it sends butterflies to her stomach, makes her heart jump and judging by the smirk he can hear it, and if you look close enough you can see a smile on her heavy lips.  
Sometimes the touch is like glue holding her together, while she is exploding inside. Sometimes shes just needs him there with her.  
Sometimes he says things with looks, his eyes held hers in a grip forcefully, keeping her their eyes locked together, as he tells her that he won't let anything happen to them. And its what she needs.

Sometimes its there little things that make life easier, sometimes she thinks it could be ok, living with Damon him, slowly healing her, like he has been lately making her smile, laugh...love. Making her gain her humanity back like she did for him. But some days its too much that want, the need for her family the pain and loss overwhelm her her senses. Some days its just too much...she misses them too much.

Elena walked to the graveyard with her yoga pants, tank top and bare feet it was early in the morning, she didn't know the exact time anymore. (She didn't look at clocks anymore, she didn't find the need for clocks anymore.)  
It was one of those nights where she woke up not remembering, something about the diseased, this time it was, the shape of the necklace her mother always wore. There was still blood on her arms when the gate to the grave yard was opened by Elena's hand, the black metal should have been cold, it probably was, but Elena couldn't feel anything except the pain today. Something like numb, she thinks. Her toes shush in the mud and it sticks to her foot as she slowly weaves her way through gravestones that mean nothing to her. Twigs snap under her feet but its like a layer of iron is protecting her from feeling any physical pain, so she keeps walking. Blood floods from her veins like a bursting dam (But it doesn't matter to her, not anymore.) She reaches 5 graves they are all the same. She sits down and her legs twist together, like a pretzel and her arms stretch out twining themselves together was she looks at where they lay. Her family.

"I miss you guys, you know" Elena says casually but quietly " Its all the time, its like you want me to be with you, or you want to be with me, I don't know... i don't really know anything anymore, I just wanna be with you' Elena sits there and stares at everything, but some would consider it nothing.

" I miss you Daddy" her voice cracks for the first time in a very long while. " I miss you, holding me and telling me that everything would be okay and you said it some many times i believed you, but dad nothings ok anymore, I miss it so much, I miss you telling me you love me too i never realized how good it felt for someone to say that to you, but i guess we don't know what we have until we lost it... god, daddy i miss you so much, it hurts."

"Its like you took a chunk of me with you, when you left" silence creeps out of the dawn before Elena breaks it " I didn't want you to leave dad, i wasn't ready."

anger sprints through her body because they can't even hear her pathetic pleas.

"Have i ever told you how much i hate you for leaving, I hate you, all of you, because you weren't strong enough to stay for me! i needed you, Now, Always" Elena screamed. Her anger changed to sadness when realization hit her, her head slowly lowered herself to her fathers gave, so her cheek was cooled by the hollow rock. Her voice changed to a frightened whisper  
"You were supposed to be at my wedding and you were supposed to walk me down the aisle and and have a threatening speech with Damon, you were supposed to tell him if he ever hurt me you you hunt him down, you were supposed to tour collage with me, you were supposed to take care of me when i was sick and hold me when i cried, I hate you because you couldn't stay for me." her voice grew hollow and empty,

" I think most of all I hate you, because you cant hear me, You're not here. And you're never going to be, I think thats what hurts the most, that i'm talking to rocks with your names on them, because, you're just...Not with here"

She didn't get any reply. Nobody ever did. It was quiet for a while she looked at the 5 gravestones, imagining a sixth next to them all, it would be too different just one more grave stone. One more memory, and one more photograph one more person nobody could get back.  
"It doesn't matter, I know you won't answer... you don't have to... we will be together soon"

"I know its selfish, and i know everyone will blame themselves, why they weren't there for me enough, they didn't check up on me enough, they will blame themselves for not reading my thoughts, and Damon will fall apart, i know that. But i need to be selfish just this one time, I just wanna see you. I miss you. It hurts... everyday..all the time. And i hope they can understand that. There is only so much hurt a girl can take" she whispered into the rising dawn, somehow it seemed more likely her family was in the horizon then the ground.

The walk back to her house was silent nobody came out of houses, no cars drove by, as if they were mourning her before she was gone; with silence. her solid feet connected with the darkwood porch as blood trailed behind her on the walk way for when the twigs cut her bare feet. she took a deep breathe... shed miss Damon, his walk, his smirk, his smile and laugh. She knows it sounds cheesy but sometimes she has to be because; its the simple things she loves most about him, his passion, how he loves her. Its love, simple. She knows she loves him and she wants to tell him...so much, but she can't she knows it will make it worst when he loses her. she knows that.

So she doesn't tell him.

The front door is unlocked, like she left it, so she walks in and shuts the heavy hard wood. Elena runs her fingers on every symmetrical line and curve if the door and when shes done she walks into the living room, then the kitchen, dining room, bathroom, her room, her parents room and then her brothers.

She can't explain how she feels because there are no words, not even the greatest writer in the world could come up with something, somethings just can't be said with words.

But actions help, she knocks over the dresser in Jeremy's room first, maybe its because she wants something else to be broken, maybe she doesn't have a reason. But she does it anyway. Her hands shake as her fingers pick things up and smash them against walls creating imperfection, in the perfect looking house. She travels down the stairs shaking so violently her legs vibrate.  
She knocks down vases  
And pictures  
And pictures  
Plates get thrown while she screams  
Just screams  
Some of it is incoherent some of it isn't  
The stuff that isn't sounds something like,  
'left me' and 'alone' and 'can't'  
Theres one thing that's clear though, two words that break through the air like fresh cut glass. two words that would break a nonexisting heart.

'it hurts'

The house is destroyed Elena's hands are cut so bad you wouldn't know that there was even skin under the endless blood.

And for the first time in a long time tears fall like pelting rain down her pretty olive skin.

And she cries, she cries for her brother, for her father, and for her aunt, she cries because she lost so much and that hurts. It hurts because she couldn't save them and she would do anything to do just that...save them, she cries because she wants to be saved to.

Somewhere deep inside maybe a spark a life lights up hurt it still hurts too much to tell right now.  
She thinks that Damon will find her body in her bedroom. She hates herself for doing this to him, she can see his horrified expression in her mind and her heart shutters. Again.  
Her feet find the familiar way too her room and her hands find a bottle of pills, the bottle is big white that look like maybe she could find peace in it, but shes not sure. She holds the bottle in her hand she thinks its heavier than it should be but shes not sure (shes not sure about almost anything anymore) but she's sure of two things, she loves him and she loves her family. Elena closes her eyes, (she hears its easier that way, because everything right now is anything but easy, and she thinks that leaving him might be harder than grieving, it might hurt more. But her head hurts, it hurts from thinking. so she doesn't, she doesn't think, she just closes her eyes and she takes a breath.

She'll miss him.

Theres a wind but she doesn't open her eyes she keeps them shut as her shaky hands fumble to take the cap of the bottle, tears still stream endlessly down her face like an unwinding road.  
"Elena" she hears Damon's voice, she thinks angels must be sending her a present paying her for the rough times she's had, they let his voice be the last noise she hears, and she smiles through the tears as her hands bring two pills to rest against her dry bottom lip "Elena don't" The voice is urgent now, pleading a little bit and she wonders why angels are making his distressed voice play through her mind, its shoulds no in pain, angry, pleading. Its emotion raw. And it makes her want to open her eyes, but she doesn't.  
"Please Elena listen to me...hear me ok? please"  
The his voice pleads with her it sounds desperate. But her mind wanders like always and this time it finds her daddy's smile and running into his arms, coming home. She pours more pills into her hand. Shes ready she thinks. She not sure, she never is.  
"Elena baby, No. Stop"  
he feels arms try to take her pills but she drops to the ground pouring more in her hand as the arms try to catch her, he always catches her. She doesn't really know what's happening but she can smell him. Damon. He smells like home she thinks maybe he could be her new home...Maybe. Before two pills pop down her throat.. she always crushed the up with two spoons and put water and sugar with it, her mother did it for her when she was little, she misses her.  
The hands are rough when they knock the bottle out of her hands she lets sobbs escape as the loss pills scattered across the floor like broken glass. Arms wrap around her as strangled noises escape her throat like wild animals. The noise clings to his ear like a child would its mother. She hears a thump as knees hit the floor beside her  
"come'mere sweetheart"  
The voice says almost softly but there's was a sense of alert in his tone. Its then that it hits her that hes here. actually holding her. And more cries rush up her lungs because she doesn't want to be weak. And she didn't want to hurt him, she didn't want to leave him...But in that moment she felt like she had to. "I'm sorry, god i'm so sorry I couldn't be strong for you" Her voice tears through the room. A hiccup and sobbed, her voice screams like shes in pain, she is. Damon's heart clenched painfully as he listened to her say endless apologizes.  
"Its ok sweetheart, but your still here, you're staying ok? you're gonna stay with me" he says to her. He needs her. "Damon its so much i miss them so much its like they took chuckes of me with them when they died and it hurts Damon, it hurts everyday, and I'm tired, i'm so tired of missing them, all of them... Damon It hurts" she pleaded with him to understand. And he did.

"Oh baby girl i know it hurts, i know..but if you leave i'm gonna miss you, i'll miss you so much, you'll take every part of me with you when you leave, i'm gonna fall apart, i'll miss you so much it'll consume me, swallow me whole. So sweetie i'm asking you to miss them longer for me ok?"

"ok?"

He asked swallowing because me means every 'god damn word' he just spoke, and that terrifies him. That his whole being, world, existence is centered around this one girl; Sometimes the concept of belonging heart and soul him, sometimes he wakes up and stares, stares out his window at dully city lights and wondering when they became dull, because they weren't before he met her, It's almost like shes the that only thing that burns bright anymore. Maybe thats why he'd kill himself if she ever did. Because he can't imagine anything else being bright anymore, because he doesn't want to see a dull world.  
Elena whimpers in his arms and nuzzles against his chest a action that makes him sigh and kiss her head and sink down so his back his against her bed and Elena's body is in his lap. His head falls back on her comforter as he closes his eyes, wondering what it will be like to just see darkness behind his eyes for the rest of eternity, its scary, but somehow peaceful, he would want to die if she did.  
"Why?"  
Elena asks smally into his chest as if shes talking to his chest, to his heart, he wants to tell her there's nothing there that his heart isn't there, but he really doesn't know that anymore. she speaks to his heart again, little does she know that it will that his heart is with her that she has it so if she leaves, she's gonna take it with her. He doesn't tell her that.  
"Why do I have to stay?"  
She already knows the answer.

"Because i'm selfish. Because I can't let you go, and you know that" He whispers to her

And its true. he is selfish he would make her stay because he needs her, because he loves her and thats how he is, and strangely thats what she loves about him, that he needs her, that she needs him, they need each other.

she nodded into his chest. She knows.

"Elena" he whispers into her hair, inhaling the smell. He loves her.  
Hes not sure why he says her name but it tastes like rain in the desert...relieving.  
"I'll stay"  
Her tone makes him breathe, really breathe, her voice is a low whisper that crackles like a fire, his head falls back on the comforter again. He smiles because hes holding her right now, because he can smell her, and touch her, he smiles because he can hear her voice, and its enough for this moment. In this moment right now its all he wants.


End file.
